Canon eos 500d mode switching and shutter response
Sunday, August 23, 2009
| Mode Switching | ||
|---|---|---|
| Play to Record, | 0.3 second | Time until first shot is captured. |
| Record to play | 1.3 second | Time to display a large/fine file immediately after capture. |
| Display | 0.5 second | Time to display a large/fine file already on the memory card. |
The Canon T1i's mode switching times are good, though Record to play is a bit sluggish.
| Shutter Response (Lag Time) | ||
|---|---|---|
| Full Autofocus | 0.159 second | Time from fully pressing shutter button to image capture. (Except where otherwise noted, all AF timing measured with Sigma 70mm f/2.8 Macro lens. - One that cameras seem able to judge focus very quickly with, even if its mechanical AF drive is slower when it actually comes to changing the focus.) |
| Full Autofocus Single-point AF TTL flash enabled Optical Viewfinder | 0.273 second | Time to capture while forcing flash to fire. Metering pulses from flash sometimes slow shutter response. In the case of the Canon T1i, using the built-in flash in TTL mode increases shutter lag about 0.11 second. |
| Prefocused | 0.089 second | Time to capture, after half-pressing and holding shutter button. |
| Continuous AF Optical Viewfinder | 0.208 second | This mode usually shows no speed increase with our static subject; we have no way to measure performance with moving subjects. |
| Manual Focus Optical Viewfinder | 0.111 second | For most cameras, shutter lag is less in manual focus than autofocus, but usually not as fast as when the camera is "prefocused". |
| Full Autofocus Live View "Quick Mode" (Phase Detect) | 1.342 seconds | This is phase-detect autofocus, the camera drops the mirror to focus, then raises it to grab the shot. |
| Full Autofocus Live View "Live Mode" (Contrast Detect) | 2.591 seconds | This is contrast-detect autofocus, the camera reads Live View data from the image sensor to determine focus. |
The Canon T1i's full autofocus shutter response is very good at 0.159 second using our standard single-point AF test. Enabling the built-in flash increased full AF lag just slightly to 0.273 second: that small an increase is excellent. "Prefocusing" the camera by half-pressing and holding down the shutter button before the final exposure results in a lag time of only 0.089 second. Manual focus was slower, at 0.111 second, and Continuous focus was slower still, at 0.208 second.
The Canon T1i's AF lag time in Live View mode was longer, as expected. We measured 1.342 seconds using "Quick Mode" (phase-detect AF), and 2.591 seconds using Live Mode (contrast-detect). The "*" button is used to autofocus in the Canon T1i's Live View mode, so it must be pressed first before the shutter release. The above times include pressing the "*" button and waiting for focus confirmation before tripping the shutter.
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